Word of the Day

Celerity, “swiftness; speed,” comes via Middle French célérité from Latin celeritās (inflectional stem celeritāt-) “swiftness, quickness, speed,” a derivative of the adjective celer. Celer comes from the Proto-Indo-European root kel- “to drive, incite to quick motion” and the suffix -es- (Old Latin keles- regularly changes to Classical Latin celer-). The Latin adjective celeber, also celebris “busy, crowded, frequented” (source of English celebrate, celebrated) is also formed from kel-. The root also appears in Greek kélēs “runner, racer, racehorse, fast ship.” Celerity entered English in the second half of the 15th century.

Fletcherize, “to chew (food) slowly and thoroughly so as to extract its maximum nutrition,” is named after Horace Fletcher (1849-1919), a self-taught U.S. nutritionist and author. During his lifetime Fletcher was known as the “Great Masticator” for his insistence that food be chewed until liquefied before swallowing and for his slogan "Nature will castigate those who don't masticate." Other food reformers of the 19th century include Sylvester Graham (1794-1851), who inspired the graham cracker. Herman Melville refers to graham crackers in his novel Pierre; or The Ambiguities (1852): “They went about huskily muttering the Kantian Categories through teeth and lips dry and dusty as any miller's, with the crumbs of Graham crackers." And John Harvey Kellogg (1852-1943) was a U.S. physician and nutritionist best known today for his invention of corn flakes. Fletcherize entered English in the early 20th century.

Noetic, “relating to the mind; originating in or comprehended by the reason,” is very common in all genres of Greek literature, but especially in Platonic, Aristotelian, and Neoplatonic philosophy. The word comes straight from the Greek adjective noētikós “intellectual,” a derivative of the noun nóēsis “thought, intelligence.” Nóēsis is a derivative of the verb noeîn, which in turn comes from the noun noûs, the Attic Greek contracted variant of general Greek nóos “mind, sense, intellect” (Attic Greek, the dialect of Attica, whose capital was Athens, was the basis for Koine or standardized Greek after the late 4th century). As with about 60 percent of ancient Greek vocabulary, there is no convincing etymology for noûs, nóos. In colloquial British usage, nous (rhyming with mouse, not with moose) also means “common sense, practical intelligence.” Noetic entered English in the middle of the 17th century.

The noun hugger-mugger, “disorder or confusion; secrecy; reticence,” has the earlier spellings hucker-mucker, hukermoker, hoker moker, hocker-mocker, hugger mucker, and the Scots variants huggrie-muggrie and hudge-mudge. All of these variant forms share reduplication, similar sounds, and nearly identical meanings, but there is no secure origin or origins for them. The word or element mucker leads some scholars to see a connection with Middle English moker “worldly possessions, wealth” and mokeren, mokren “to heap up (money); hoard.” Hugger-mugger entered English in the first half of the 16th century.

The verb perorate, “to speak at length; make a long, grandiloquent speech,” comes from Latin perōrātus, the past participle of perōrāre “to plead, harangue, argue a case to the end; deliver the final part of a speech, wind up a case.” Perōrāre is a compound of the preposition and intensive prefix per, per- “through, thoroughly” and the simple verb ōrāre “to beseech, supplicate; speak before a court, plead.” Perōrāre and its derivative noun perōrātiō (inflectional stem perōrātiōn- “peroration”) in Latin imply grandiloquence and forcefulness, but not length, let alone long-windedness, which is a connotation that has always existed in English. Perorate entered English in the early 17th century.